hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture thanks to republicans and their refusal to close a few tax loopholes for billionaires it appears that the u.s. is headed for the sequester and devastating austerity given what's happened with austerity in europe why are republicans playing this very dangerous game with our economy also while the motor city faces economic disaster republicans in michigan are doing all they can to subvert democracy and rig elections what can be done to protect the power of the people in michigan and stop the endless lot of republican election rigging efforts and is it possible to curb gun violence improve the economy and help rebuild the middle class all in one step the new report out

suggests it might be dive into that report later in the show. did you know this this was the scene in spain on saturday as hundreds of thousands of spaniards took to the streets to protest against conservative austerity which is ruining that nation's economy under the slogan citizens tied twenty three f. marking the twenty third of february the anniversary of an attempted military coup in one thousand eight hundred one activists warned that they are up against another sort of cooed today a takeover by the one percent workers from all sectors joined in the mass demonstrations including doctors teachers and miners as protests comes on the heels of a new report by the european commission projecting a second straight year of contract in getting smaller economies in the. euro zone

it'll be the third year of economic contraction in the past five years since austerity was imposed on the eurozone and in spain specifically conservative austerity is driving the unemployment rate toward a mind boggling twenty seven percent it's clear austerity is an economy killer but what they call austerity in europe today is called something completely different here in the united states right now here we call it the sequester yep that is where the circulating around the d.c. beltway referring to the automatic spending cuts set to kick into effect in just four days unless our lawmakers avoid act to avoid them and so far with republicans refusing to agree on a compromise measure to replace the sequester by closing a few tax loopholes for billionaires it looks like the united states will indeed get hit by the sequester and its european style austerity which begs the question why given what we're seeing happen in europe why are our lawmakers plane this very

dangerous economic game with the sequester that's as richard wolffe economist and visiting professor of the graduate program for international affairs at the new school university and author of numerous books and because most recent democracy at work a cure for capitalism richard welcome back thank you tom glad to be here thank you congress created this this monster this this is austerity package called the sequester can't they just get rid of it. absolutely it was their failure to agree republicans and democrats back in two thousand and eleven that led them to impose this stream of self punishment of automatic rather than deliberated economic policy and of course they can do that at any time by their votes that they have to do this in a rational way i'm afraid there is no conclusion other than an economic crisis that

shows our economic system doesn't work is now producing the kind of gridlock and strange behavior among our politicians that suggests that the failure in economics has now infected politics as well and we look at a and in that strange process of shooting ourselves in the foot economically when we really don't need to if the sequester actually kicks in what effect will it have both on our economy and the deficit that it's supposed to care. well the first effect it will have is a massive cutback in government spending you don't need to be an economist to understand that in an economy that already has high unemployment with serious problems across the board if the number one buyer of goods and services the federal government in our country cuts back what it spends on goods and services it's going to throw people out of work it is going to cut back production and the first an

obvious thing is it's going to make our economy worse the second thing is if that happens and that's what everywhere we're seeing then the result will be with more people out of work with less goods and services purchased fewer taxes will be paid and that will not make the deficits at the federal state and local government get better it will make them worse because less tax money is coming in as the economy deteriorates this is precisely what has happened in greece in britain in ireland in spain so it's not as though we don't know what's going to happen we really have a pretty clear idea of where this is leading what the starve the beast economists the conservative economists are saying or at least have said to me on this program is it's the automatic stabilizers that are making things so much worse in other

words you know people are thrown out of work now they're eligible for unemployment insurance they're eligible for food stamps they're eligible for for medical care paid for by the government all those things drive drive up the government debt the solution is to stop funding anything like that give people absolutely nothing and then when the economy goes in the crapper you don't have to worry about the government did get debt getting worse and serious sponsor that. well i always find that amazing logic because it starts with all the people needing food stamps unemployment insurance medical insurance coverage what a strange place to start why don't you ask the question why do we suddenly have people needing all those things and the answer is crystal clear we have a crisis of our capitalist system we have a failure of the private enterprises above all in finance who are supposed to be guardians of our deposits prudent investors and prudent lenders in the myth ology of economics they really messed up they produced an economic disaster

a crisis of epic proportions throwing people out of work if you want to solve the problem of our deficit he got to deal with the crisis because that's where it begins rather than punishing the only employed and those without medical insurance who are the victims of the crisis and not its causes how important is that the united states has a sovereign currency that we can print dollars whereas greece and spain can't print your o's how does that differentiate us how does that make our problem different than than the average european countries problem. well the united states can manipulate its currency to solve its own financial problems it can do that for example by printing more of it and by circulating more of it in the economy by changing interest rates at the federal reserve level in terms of what they do to influence the flow of money in the economy and by damaging or changing the ratio of

the dollar to other currencies the greeks can't do that the spanish can't do that because that's all done at a european level where the germans are dominant and where they can control what happens so we have more flexibility it doesn't mean we'll solve the problem any better but we have more tools and more ways to do it and therefore less justification for the fact that we're now in the sixth year of this economic crisis we're not even halfway back to the unemployment level which wasn't good to begin with back in two thousand and seven so we have a government unable and unwilling to take the steps even though it has more tools like control of our currency and the sense it makes the failure more egregious in terms of what they're not doing do you think that they're not doing it or to the extent that they're proactive like with the sequester they're doing the wrong thing because it's really not about fixing an economic problem do you think that there are that there is an element of what daily klein called the shock doctrine milton

friedman you know talk about crisis opportunity to create a new economy of by and for the one percent as there it would be paranoid to suggest that had an agenda no i think that different people do things for different reasons some more conscious some less some more. conspiratorial some less i think what you're seeing though is a systematic effort to tell the american people something they know is not true the problem is our economy collapsed in two thousand and seven and eight because. the speculation in asset backed securities and all those arcane activities of ai g. and the big banks that fell apart the crisis then evolved only employment home foreclosures that's our problem our problem isn't the government's balance of credit and debit

that's a strange game to be playing it deflects everybody all we have to fix the government's balance sheet no we don't we have to fix the underlying economy and then we'll have a balance sheet that liveable as we did before we had this crisis and that's the key thing in my judgment what this focus on the debt is is an attempt to get away from what the obvious alternative solution might be the one from our own history of the 1930's solve this economic problem not by bailouts at the top the trickle down that hasn't worked build it from below give people the jobs give people the incomes that will allow them to spend the money pay off their mortgages stay in their homes and little percolate up to the business sector roosevelt in the thirty's whatever criticisms and he deserves plenty but what he did pressed from the people below was tax the rich and tax the corporations and use of the money to create social

security unemployment compensation and twelve million jobs that worked to do much for the people of the united states in that great depression the tragedy the shame the scandal today is we're not even discussing that all we discuss is raising taxes on people like we did with the payroll tax cutting spending as were threatening to do at the end of the week and we never discussed the alternative approach from a bottom up way which is more democratic helps more people and work better in the past than the trickle down they're doing is working now where should we have just just one minute left why do you think we're not having that conversation. because those in charge to be blunt but to be honest those who have become very wealthy in the last thirty years have understood an old lesson the mass of the american people do have the vote if a majority got together they could act politically to undo the crisis and the

inequality of our economic system to prevent that those who are controlling the economic system who do well the top one percent long ago understood control the politics so that that avenue is cut off to undo a reverse what we're doing in the economy and the american people have to understand that or they will not escape neither this crisis nor the long term decline that it's part of brilliantly said professor richard wolfe thanks so much for being with us today thank you tom. after our break democracy is under attack in michigan as that state's republicans overwhelmingly approved a plan to rig the elections what can be done to stop the latest round of republican election rigging efforts.

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in screw news over the weekend republicans attend a michigan state g.o.p. convention overwhelmingly approved a plan that would be up that state's electoral votes fourteen of the state's sixteen electoral votes go would go to whichever candidate got the most votes in each congressional district well the other two would go to the statewide vote total winner and she has one of several traditionally democratic blue states where republicans are in control and trying to rig their way to future victories and while democracy to michigan in michigan is under attack that state's economy isn't doing much better according to detroit's financial review team the city must appoint an emergency manager to save the city from complete financial disaster report from the financial review team said that a local government financial emergency exists within the city of detroit because no

satisfactory plan exist to resolve a serious financial problem. this plan of course coming out of the rick snyder administration so will the motor city be the next target of governor rick snyder's little dictators joining me now is the reverend dee alexander balik president of rainbow push detroit welcome back thank you for having us great to have you with is a lot to get a lot to cover tonight first of all let's start with this vote by the republicans this was not a legislative vote this was a party vote basically show we all get together and reveal our actions so that you know we can have another president obama kind of situation this is really what it's about is exactly i mean you would think in a democracy we'd be trying to rock the vote not rig the vote but we saw the republican party in the state of michigan farm a plan basically to fix the election by changing the electoral college rules and so even those this was not a legislative procedure we know that state rep peter lund has already said that he is going to introduce legislation to make this

a state law in the state of michigan tried already during the lame duck period last year it did not get through and so i think this is foreshadowing an attempt to disenfranchise the the voters of the state of michigan and the republicans are doing this in all the blue states that they control and we look back now and see an enormous effort by the billionaires to fund republican candidates in in six or seven blue states in the two thousand and ten elections that was successful and but they're not doing in the red states you know they're not talking about allocating electoral votes in texas and oklahoma and it's just well why would it matter to anyone. indeed indeed i mean this is about fixing elections this this is about not playing fair this is about disenfranchising democracy and so it's really a heinous attempt and it's terrible that we smear seeing these kinds of policies being put in place so you're here in d.c. in part because of your involvement shelby versus versus holder the the shelby

county or other versus holder the case before the supreme court told. well we're here in d.c. because we're very very concerned about people who want to argue that somehow section five of the voting rights act no longer needs to apply because america is doing so well now and we don't need legal tools in place to make sure that minority voters are not disenfranchised that maps and not change arbitrarily nobody says dynamo there's no more discrimination until somebody said because we have an african-american president all of all of a sudden everything's all right you know it reminds me of an argument i heard the other day where a friend of mine was trying to convince me that the n.b.a. should get rid of all their referees because the teams have been getting along so we'll. see what it doesn't make any sense at all the referees are there preemptively i mean there's there because they are part of the institutional structure to fight against fouls and and folks who would abuse the system and so section five right i mean is very important because you want to have

a provision that says the federal government has to sign off on changes in those changes have to be checked in advance so that minority voters are not disenfranchised you know if i had a complaint about the voting rights act and section five specifically it would be that it only applies to those states where they have quote identified a history because frankly you know michigan is not one of those states and i'm seeing this in michigan i'm saying this was consonant seemless in indiana and ohio and indeed i would make the same challenge even though. the histo historical behavior is a great basis for the application of this. that's right but we also have to look at present behavior and we've been arguing in michigan now for at least two years that emergency management makes a great case for section five to be extended to other states not based on past experience but based on what we're facing presently well and let's get to that this emergency manager law the rick snyder and his buddies republican buddies got passed

a couple years ago and you know used to take over better. school. districts and privatized public lands things like that got voted down by the people that's right so they put it back into law again and right and and now they are fixing to take detroit seriously well they put it back into place and put in appropriation it is very important so that the people can not repeal the law again it is referendum proof so they basically cut the democratic process out and so now yes detroit faces the reality of an emergency manager that will come in and the mayor will be useless city council will be useless is already an emergency manager in the school district and so democracy will be dead in the city of detroit and and our right to representation our right to vote our right to be a part of the process will be a right that is ignored and trampled upon. given how emergency managers have behaved in other parts of michigan up to this point what expect. setting aside the

democracy is gone just in terms of practical what's going to happen what would you expect to happen well i expect for the city finances not to improve to get worse i expect the city of detroit to see more cuts more cuts in city workers more cuts and firefighters more cuts and police officers benton harbor is budget steel is in balance and unemployment is steel rising but their golf course had a golf course. in lake front property pontiac loves to silverdome but it hasn't gained jobs the budget still isn't is a balance flip murder capital of michigan right violence is off the charts and so all of these places have emergency managers and none of these places have improved if we talk about school districts highland park school district has an emergency manager and the a.c.l.u. now has filed suit against the emergency manager because those students in that school district have not been taught how to read and write so the emergency manager has not been delivering the appropriate financial products to the children so we're

focused on budgets but we're not concerned about. people i think this is going to spell disaster for the city of detroit our our our michiganders or i understand there's an effort to call the michigan ians now when i grew up it was a machine i was in michigan and still well. are there are those good citizens of michigan starting to figure. that the republicans are messing up their state and if so how is that the republicans were able to hold hold power in the state of michigan through this last election with just a few months ago here in michigan as are figuring out that republicans are mean bad news for michigan that big money means bad news for michigan and so part of the challenge has been how do we animate the base i don't think that the democratic party has done a great job in our recent history in terms of really really taking the enemies of the people and employing that in in political activity but i'm hopeful i'm seeing

grandmothers in grassroots activists pastors and teachers people who normally say politics is not for me saying look i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired i'm fed up i don't want to be disenfranchised how can we celebrate the expansion of democracy on the federal level commentating in the election of president barack obama and then not fight against people trying to crush democracy in the state level in the state of michigan and around the country we must fight back against this state's rights agenda and we must go forward and open up the democratic door so that we all can practice the right to vote and so people are getting excited being engaged and i think you'll see a grassroots political movement in michigan really really come to the forefront very quickly is there we know the policy prescriptions of the republicans you know emergency managers will dictators what are the policy prescriptions that you would call for well again we need urban policy we must stop the foreclosure crisis but we also have to hold the banks accountable we need access to capital for small

businesses a lot of these a big. and homes in places like detroit or gary indiana pick your spot a lot of these event in homes probably can be given away to firefighters to two teachers to police officers and say hey look we'll give you the house just live in the neighborhood rehabilitate the home we need to put civics back in the classrooms and inspire young people to be a part of the political process i think there are so many things from from federal government policy to local activism to changes in our in our educational process that can happen in even if we disagree about the solution we all know emergency management is not the answer. it's brilliant thank you i thank you thank you thank so much for being with us.

is the good the bad the very very tyo for weekly ugly a good campaign to stop killer robots seriously activists around the world fear what could be a skynet future if the world's militaries continue their embrace of fully autonomous weaponized machinery newspaper the guardian's reporting that activists plan to unveil this new campaign against killer robots in april in the british house of commons pointing out the surge in the use of unmanned drones and a recent report by human rights watch that warns about other killer robots under development the campaign to stop killer robots insists this is not science fiction and that already in america more pilots are being trained by the u.s. air force on drones than actual aircraft it's true keep an eye on this movement it could be very important the future especially if the drones ever become self-aware . bad on tanna state representative steve lavin just

a matter. time until some republicans stretch corporate personhood to its logical extremes and steve lavin did just that introduced a bill in the montana state house to give corporations a right to vote under the bill quote a firm partnership company or corporation end quote holding property would have a right to vote just as a citizen votes so just to be clear over taking away the rights of actual people to vote with a new voter suppression idea was one republican was to expand voting rights for artificial persons to corporations that don't have a brain robot we need to end this insanity before corporations are given second amendment rights and begin placing cannons on top of their corporate headquarters or move to amend. and the very very ugly the joint strike fighter caucus last week we learned that the entire fleet of f. thirty five joint strike fighters was grounded after problems were discovered with

the engine so far the f. thirty five project is the most expensive in the history of the military costing taxpayers roughly four hundred billion dollars and is roughly six years behind schedule and given the way wars are fought days it's unlikely the f. thirty five will ever play a critical role in our armed services. money keeps getting poured into this pentagon black hole because the joint strike fighter caucus in congress is more committed to funneling fortunes to their war profiteer buddies then to public education health care or infrastructure plain and simple if you think we have a debt crisis and you want to keep funding military programs we don't need instead of healthcare programs we do need and you're not a deficit hawk you're just stuck with policies that are very dear. after the break researchers have found that increases in violent crimes including gun violence are related to war wage trends so it could increase the national minimum wage help solve our epidemic of gun violence in america.

potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down to the bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. piece and it is going to pretty incredible day

there and even record snowfall throughout what's been like bilbies long three driving lessons to the emergency vehicles are exceptions. back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour going on a family vacation to disney world as a toddler is supposed to be a fun and magical experience supposed to be a traumatizing nightmare thanks to air corps airport security theater in america a traumatizing experience is becoming the norm i'll tell you how we can change that

insulates you take and millions of americans including louise and me would do anything for their furry feline friends so might come as a shock that someone things getting rid of ads would be for the best we'll talk to the man who's trying to convince new zealanders to say no to cats and tonight's everything you know is real. to the rest of the news the president laid out two priorities state of the union address a few weeks ago doing something about gun violence and raising the minimum wage it turns out those two issues are linked very closely together as a new report by stand up chicago demonstrates there's a connection between areas of low wages and areas of high gun violence take a look at this map the redder the county is the lower the wages are in that county

and the bigger the dot is the higher the homicide rate as you'll see wherever there's low wages is more gun violence goes on to say researchers are found that the majority of increases in violent quat crime can be explained by downward wage trends and the national bureau of economic research reports that a twenty percent drop in wages leads to a twelve to eighteen percent increase in youth crime. so given this can we effectively kill two birds with one stone raise the minimum wage and thus reduce gun violence let's ask my next guest joining me now is a little bit a little bit perusia policy analyst a research coordinator at parisian excuse me policy analyst research coordinator at stand up chicago elizabeth welcome. doesn't this report prove conclusively that there is an association between low wages and gun violence shouldn't everybody in america be talking about this right now. yes absolutely we

worked on this report knowing that we're in the middle of a discussion a national discussion about gun violence and particularly here in chicago as you know we are at the center of the gun violence epidemic in this country where the murder capital of the country unfortunately with over five hundred homicides last year alone and what we were never saying is when folks are talking about how do we reduce gun violence there's they're talking about gun control and those things are good but really the fundamental cause of gun violence in this country is poverty in this is what we outlined in the report and if you fly on the map it's very striking almost perfectly correlate. the higher murder rates and by the first of the very well off sections of the north side of the city experienced very few homicides so we really want to make central to this discussion about gun violence because it is very clear if you addressed poverty the issue of gun violence decrease dramatically

. i'm curious your thoughts on why the n.r.a. hasn't been promoting some in a way when they thought i mean they're like you know anything but the guns right it's it's crazy people it's it's not enough medals and mental services we don't have enough teachers in this i mean that comes along kind of things when somebody ought to put a bug in their ear and say whatever the cliche is. a guy's. right will certainly be interesting. and i mean of course they should adopt as i think also we support of gun control obviously the fewer guns there are the less chance they'll get into the wrong hands so yeah this is something that everyone should be talking about and i am having with the n.r.a. specifically they might have some allies that are opposed to some of the measures that we are. in such as raising we need to raising the minimum wage and creating

direct. programs for the unemployed so. yes they absolutely should recognize that poverty is the sponsor fundamental cause of gun violence and. if they're going to do that any time then i would not hold my breath. unfortunately to what extent does raising the minimum wage what evidence is there that actually raising the minimum wage would cure for gun violence in chicago well as we worked on this report we found the evidence was overwhelming there's been decades of research on this issue and what we found. was not just in the u.s. but other countries and it's a very clear correlation when you see the spike in murder rates through the home aside becoming a big problem like it is in chicago and other cities across the u.s. what we find is that it can almost always be traced to the the labor market meaning are workers getting paid enough to live on or are they not and so right now obviously in the us we're seeing the national minimum wage seven twenty five an

hour is not nearly enough to support a family or i'm here now and i were a little twenty five here but again those are the poverty wages so really this is an issue of paying workers a livable ring it's another thing that we're advocating for and saying if you pay low wage workers anough to get by enough to support their families not without having to a lot rely on public assistance or private charity then its been shown you will see and then most of the research shows and the media throw in violent crime and in places like let's let's hope that people figure this out and figure it out quickly listen with parisian thank you so much for being with us tonight. thank you. speed of guns the n.r.a. is giddy today thinking it has the smoking gun pun intended it needs to defeat any new gun regulations the organization says it has obtained a justice department memo that suggests the only way for gun control to be a factor of is through seizing firearms the memo written by a d.o.j. researcher points out that banning the future sale of assault weapons and high

capacity magazines would only have a limited impact because of the massive number of guns that are already in circulation or as the white house has repeatedly said that they have no plans to confiscate guns and according to the a.p. a justice department official described the leaked memo as an unfinished review of gun violence and that it does not represent the administration's policy on gun control but the n.r.a. doesn't care and they've already used this memo to cut a new ad against gun safety policies. let's look at what obama's own experts have to say this internal justice department memo says quote an assault weapons ban has unlikely to have an impact on gun violence unlikely that is unless it comes with something else obama's experts say that a gun ban like the one being debated right now in congress will not work without mandatory gun. mandatory gun. that's government comes geisha of

legal firearms owned by honest citizens so should we be surprised that the n.r.a. is media strategy is reliant on after truths again to advance the gun industry's agenda let's ask tommy christopher a media correspondent white house reporter for media dot com tommy welcome back thanks for having me great to have you here with us regarding the n o a n r a's department of justice memo how long till fox is fixed picks up a story or they haven't yet i submit we have to see all that you have so i don't know but you know seriously. what is this say about the areas media strategy. i mean. i don't think really adds anything of the conversation i mean it's clear it's been clear for a long time that they're desperate. both to try and stem the tide that's going on the country now but also just to get more attention for themselves you know it was clear the day that wayne la pierre decided to give his press conference almost to the minute one month one week after it was

a week or month after the massacre in newtown. and then come out and say no we were not going to any about guns and this is build on that that's pretty bizarre i'd like to get your take on something robert gibbs said anonymous n.b.c. about being in the white house and how they handled the issue of drones here is robert gibbs. when i went through the process of becoming press secretary one of the things well the first things they told me was you're not even sort of knowledge of the drone program you're not even to discuss that it exists and so i would get a question like that and literally i couldn't tell you what major asked because once i figured out it was about to drop. i realize i'm not supposed to talk about it and but here's what's in here are we crazy about matt proposition you're being asked a question based on reporting of a program that exists right so tell me you're in the white house all the time near the white house reporter. what went through your mind when you saw that well.

the first thing i thought was of course and then i saw that everybody in the world picked it up and why is this news like to you know do we not think that robert gibbs knew about the drone strike but i was talking a few my colleagues today and i was said i said you know what what's the story here why is this news and they're like well you know i mean it's it's kind of like you know if you knew about it and didn't acknowledge its existence i think that's going to stretch but i do think that i'd like to i wish i could get to tell us what he was told when he took over so terry you know he was going to begin as is the reason gibbs was such a great press secretary for us. the reason was so valuable to us because we knew that he knew things and so you know if we you know if we ask enough questions we ask the right way maybe we'll get him to say something newsworthy you know because he's so close to the present in the news here is that the white house press secretary finally told the truth and what does that say about journalism in america or for that matter management of the white house when the press secretary telling

the truth becomes news well yeah that's a good point and what's a little surprising too is that you know if i remember i watched that show with chris hughes it's an excellent show and. i don't how it came but i think gibbs just volunteered it and so it does from seem strange to me that the nobody ever asked him that we're never asked about it. but you know people are going to start asking jay carney ok jay is there you know let me ask you about this program that has to do with x.y.z. you know i know you can't talk about x.y.z. but can you talk about the i was i can't talk i was actually to ask him that today haven't just hit me i was going to ask him you know when you first became president did they tell you not to talk about the drone program or to tell you that the drone program didn't exist and i'd like to know that because you know now that their knowledge and you're right you know that it makes you wonder. and i think i mean i suspect the answer is that you know once they switch from gibbs to carney you know they've probably deliberately said you know what we're not going to tell you no impressario don't usually know as much as robert gibbs did and this is the reason

why you know. jim angle this happened over a fox news whether so-called hard news reporters take a look at this. many economists fear the economy is entering a period of stagnation with little job creation ahead and without job creation consumers don't have a lot of money to spend and many economists say the reason for a stagnant economy are clear too much debt too many regulations and tax increases in a slow economy sounds like opinion to mena news yeah and this is a game that fox news where there were a column about it and. there was a hard news or. porter and you know he'll put something forward that's opinion and then toss to some opinionated expert to get them to say it. and you know sort of pass off as new as you know they are bret bair did this. week he did this special report on benghazi and he got. charles krauthammer to say something that wasn't

even true so bear you know bears setting up the clip he says and you know this is what this is what happened and then krauthammer says the thing and then barry gets to say well i'm a straight news guy and i didn't say in the wrong way you know thank you so he's trying to have you with us. coming up all across the country toddlers and adults alike are being terrorized by the total clown show we call airport security it's time that change that americans no longer fear of stepping foot inside an airport i'll tell you how we can stop invasive pat downs and public shaming since nights deleted. scenes i would like. to know silence. in the. invisible. every day is a struggle. for our children soundly at night.

we are palestinian women working in the israel. we've done more for our kids than our husbands. know we are phantoms in this life. wealthy british style sun it's time to. market. i know what's really happening to the global economy with my extremes are the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to the reports.

so sometimes you know what you know and sometimes you know what you don't know and sometimes the fires and the. thing you know is wrong. don't think. you're right. just make. sure. you go east. of the debate over climate change and global warming heats up on touted

a variety of solutions have already been proposed to help save our environment one environmentalist has proposed a new way to help save our planet let's just say it's a little outside the litter box so if you think that kept her in on your lap as a furry friend and not a little devil wreaking avick all across our environment and everything you know might be wrong joining me now is gareth morton byron medalist and founder of the cats to go campaign hero's welcome. good to have us with good to have you with us my kad haggans. later my cat i think you know what do you what do you got against my cat. nothing. johnny when you can't wanda's that it becomes a bit of a menace there's nothing wrong whatsoever with complying cats but i can find dogs no problems whatsoever but once they start wandering we know the only data tells us the camps a natural born killers. and i don't know about america but in the channel where i

come from we have a lot of native wildlife that is highly vulnerable to the actions of kids and given that can't you know they kill for pleasure they don't kill more when they're hungry they only within twenty feet of st what they kill today at home and they eat the same with the just to die and ate the other two when the weather got as they see it so. yeah the evidence against their activities once they're out of bounds said est as quite compelling yeah i have to say our cats have never been outdoor cats and i i don't disagree cat one single cat can basically evacuated. isn't something else something close to a quarter square mile of at least ground rolling birds and small mammals and it's pretty simple that he has less or. well i mean they can't we know by appending

kitty can't and kitty cans to them that they travel you know three to five kilometers on the radius. of the six. so they can do a lot of damage to the anyways and urban kids don't. wonder that is because they come up against other. cities and they got how territory so yeah so what's your solution are you suggesting that we should spay and neuter all the cats and confine them indoors or not i mean staying and using for all the different subject i mean i think it's important to have the population control and giving. not having on wanted kids because. we're where i am as a lot of kittens adopt a forehead and you know what i mean. on the net so that's where the about you and your drawings about trying to stop it now my my thing really is that people should

be more conscious about cats wandering unwanted kit's wandering across their properties are you calling a euthanasia of feral cats. well. absolutely their major killer. but what i would suggest is that one young man ticket if they caught and would tend to the local pound in the pound gypsum microchip another microchip then obviously they get they go back to the owner whether they only get fined or not is a matter for the local authority but at the end not chipped then they do get euthanized and that will make a big difference on the numbers you know time to crack down on the on the wandering cats thanks so much for being with us and i. we do it the dog got me. thank you get it done.

crazy alert forty three year old early johnson came home last week to find that three of his flat screen t.v.'s had been stolen but that's not what upset him the most soon realize the robber stole his foreign collection to. have a collection every african american has been in the war there ever been a war implemented. and to love to know. it was him is drawn to notice it was that. as you see the. collision with the best in michigan a gun a connecticut told to get. will power grid in. question try and i. know you over. johnson estimates his porn collection is worth over seventy five hundred dollars but there might be some good news in a story like coolidge the owner of monarchy distribution

a notable porn company heard johnson's story and sympathized with him so much that he's offering to replenish johnson's porn collection by giving johnson one copy of every title in the company's catalog as well as two free tickets to the adult entertainment expo next year in las vegas coolidge said quote we felt it was our civic responsibility to offer to help him replenish his collection meanwhile johnson bought a brand new h.d.t.v. three d. t.v. telling reporters he will soon be getting his porn on blu ray from now on and that quote the haters aren't going to stop him from collecting again. after the attack of the attacks of nine eleven it was only natural that our government would put in place new policies to help prevent future terrorist attacks

unfortunately. thanks to the administration of george w. bush and dick cheney and their fear everything doctrine we as a nation went nuts as a result what we have today is a system that is badly broken but does very little actually protect the lives of americans and it is in need of some serious reconsideration since nine eleven the focus has been on airport security or the lack thereof because airport security had been privatized and airport screeners were about the same caliber and pay as burger king workers the bush administration established the t.s.a. in a barber of two thousand and one according to that agency's website the mission of the t.s.a. is to quote protect the nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce and quote but there's always been a dynamic tension between freedom and security has been franklin identified after the constitutional convention and when security is over done it can sometimes end up somewhere between an oppressive institution and

a clown show that's for three year old lucy for comes in earlier this month t.s.a. officials at lambert st louis international airport in st louis missouri detain three year old lucy out her way to a family vacation at disney world agents threaten the frightened little girl with an invasive pat down little lucy is confined to a wheelchair and her mother took cell phone video of the entire traumatic experience despite being told by the agent that it was illegal to do so. there is. this kind of. fun. yet in my right you can clearly see how scared little lucy is and hear her mother's questioning why such invasive security techniques need to be performed on a wheelchair bound toddler but lucy story is just one of many tragic and

unnecessary acts in america's modern security theater in october of two thousand and twelve michael durant doing a terminally ill cancer patient michelle excuse me do was on her way to visit friends and family in hawaii for what would likely be her last time seeing them when do not rive did seattle sea-tac airport t.s.a. agents forced her to lift up her shirt in public so they could check underneath her bandages. asked for privacy but the agents wouldn't allow it the whole situation started after t.s.a. agent had seen to being connected to do dash to do nash's torso a result of her medical condition and nash was eventually allowed to proceed only after being hurt and humiliated earlier in two thousand and twelve t.s.a. agents and for lauderdale airport in florida pulled eighteen month old baby girl rianna off a flight because her name was on the federal government's no fly list take a look at happened tuesday night at the airport in fort lauderdale brianna and her

parents had just boarded a jet blue flight they were heading home to new jersey they say that's when a jet blue employee told them they have to get off the plane and i said for a while and he sent well it's not you or your husband and your daughter was flying as no fly i said excuse me. brianna's family believes they were being profiled due to their middle eastern name and because riyadh his mother was dressed in a traditional. rewind two years america's security theater rears its ugly head yet again three year old rocco do bell was traveling with his family and in a wheelchair with a broken leg as his family passed through the security checkpoint rocco was detained by t.s.a. agents and swab for explosive residue again the incident was posted on the web and again the t.s.a. was forced to issue an apology all of these incidents took place at our nation's airports but that's not our only mass transit system at least so far thankfully there are no pat downs or public shaming ins in the rest of our nation's transit

system that's because ever since the bush administration created the t.s.a. all the security focus has been placed on the skies and not on the ground is that because they just haven't got around to buses trains and cars or is it because the whole thing is more theater than reality back in the one nine hundred seventy s. after numerous aircraft hijackings to cuba legislation was introduced in congress to require airlines to harden their cockpit doors but the u.s. airlines didn't want to pay the one time cost which would have been around one hundred thousand dollars per plane would have cut into their quarterly profits so they lobbied congress hard in the legislation die if united and american airlines had had to harden the cockpit doors on nine eleven nine eleven as we know it never would have happened and in the ultimate example of locking the barn door after the horse is out as cockpit doors today they're hard but we behave like they're not

and like we're all terrified. and this security theater like the military industrial complex it's become a part of just keeps growing and growing without ever being question chertoff porno x. ray machines to groping kids in wheelchairs to humiliating cancer patients this nation used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave but since bush and cheney we've become the land of the frightened and the home of the sheep it's time we change that it's time for sensible security in the united states that protects the lives and frankly even more importantly the rights of all of us. that's the way it is today monday there are twenty fifth twenty thirty or more information on any of the stories we covered this is our web sites of thom hartmann dot com free speech or. if you missed any of the night's show you can now watch it in h.d. on hulu and who dot com slash the big picture also check out our two youtube

channels there are links to tom hartman are also there you can check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get back into your seat about.

the first. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more kind of. the bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. jason it is been a pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout what's been like nobody's long three driving lessons from urgency here exceptional.

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